Venice rewards the work of the Italian-American scientist Antonio Giordano, president and founder of the Sbarro Health Research Organization (Shro) at Temple University in Philadelphia, USA, full professor of Anatomy and Pathological Histology at the University of Siena. The Neapolitan oncologist receives the Golden Lion for legality, for having demonstrated with his studies the correlation between health and pollution, and in particular the link between the illicit landfilling of waste controlled by the Camorra and tumor pathologies in Campania in Land of fires.
The anti-mafia magistrate Catello Maresca, now president of the legality section of the Golden Lion award, proposed the award to the jury of the Venice grand prize. He was responsible for many investigations against the Casalesi clan who poisoned the lands between Naples and Caserta, recalls a note. The award was presented this morning in Venice, at the Palazzo della Regione Veneto, a few hours after the filing of the Supreme Court ruling which released the entire assets confiscated from the members of the Pellini family, convicted of environmental crimes and held responsible for the disaster that Giordano caused fought and fights.
“Just as the assets of the Pellinis and the entrepreneurs involved in the illicit trafficking of waste are being released – declare Giordano and Maresca – the recognition appears to be a significant gesture, of taking a stand for legality and justice, a cry that still keeps attention high on an increasingly topical topic. We will never lower our guard to continue to protect a tormented land like Campania from environmental criminals. Even in a very difficult moment for the fight against the Camorra, in which years of investigations are thrown away due to procedural delays and of successes of the State against the clans, we must not lose hope and we must continue the battle for legality even in schools to spread the anti-mafia culture”.
With a scientific study also described in the book 'Rubbish of the State', Giordano brought to the attention of the Prosecutor's Office many outlawed Campania realities. Receiving “an award dedicated to Italian excellence” is for the scientist “a small redemption for my land”, an incentive to “continue to work in the direction of good, keeping public attention high on a deeply rooted issue that emerges in even more evidently when the world tries to recover on an environmental level and assume a sustainable identity”.
The awards ceremony chaired by Sileno Candelaresi – reports the note – brings together every year a mix of Italian and international excellence in the fields of entrepreneurship, sport and culture. The knight Gianfranco Sciscione, twice Golden Lion for professional merits, presents the collaboration with the starred chef Luigi Ciciriello and the producer of Euroasia Yimei Heng who receive the Venice institutional plaque of the Lion of San Marco. The Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement goes to Amedeo Bianchi, Michele Bauli, Paolo Agnelli and Angelo Simonetti. The singer-songwriter Shara, the sports director of Juventus Cristiano Giuntoli, Adolfo De Angelis, the chef Graziano Press, the rector of the University of Naples Federico II (who turns 800) Matteo Lorito, the scientist Annamaria Colao, the president of Promovetro di Murano Luciano Gambaro and Simona Tardani, principal of the 'Sacro Cuore' private institute in Rome, receive the Golden Lion for professional merit.